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To honour the 10th anniversary of the smartphone that changed everything, I forced myself to read the entirety of Brian Merchant's The One Device. It's definitely meant for Apple fans, and seems at times to be set in a fictitious world where Android doesn't even exist.

To be fair, one of the chapters where Android is actually acknowledged turned out to be the most illuminating one, at least for me. The author visits the infamous Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, where a surprisingly candid employee had this to say about the local job market:

“I was tricked to work for Foxconn,” a new recruit says. “I intended to work for Huawei,” he adds, referring to the Chinese smartphone competitor. “People feel way better working for Huawei, better corporate culture, more comfortable.” In fact, he says, “Everyone has the idea of working in Foxconn for one year and getting out of the factory and going to work for Huawei.”

So congratulations to any Huawei owners reading this; you can rest easy with the knowledge that the people who built your device were treated well while making it. And if you were wondering about that other big smartphone OEM, later in the same chapter a Foxconn higher-up had this to say:

“I had a meeting with Samsung executives and they said they would just follow Apple [...] That’s what they told us—they would do whatever Apple did.”

So what exactly does Apple do? If you're not familiar with Cupertino's decidedly hands-off approach to manufacturing, check out my Christmas Downer post from 2014.

Though I will fight for the smartphone audio jack with my last dying breath I am also, somewhat paradoxically, a fan of wireless earbuds. I try to get in about four to five hours of podcast listening per week, and usually do so on a morning or afternoon walk. Wired earbuds serve this purpose fairly well, except for the cord that either gets tangled as I pull out my phone to skip through an ad, or gets caught on some random object as I walk by it. So-called "neckbuds", a set earbuds connected by a cable that goes around the back of one's head, are only slightly better; the cable has an annoying habit of snagging on my shirt or jacket collar and reminding me that it's there.

But these... these are by far the most comfortable earbuds I've ever worn. Right out of the box they fit my ears perfectly, and if they didn't I'd still have two other sets of in-ear gels to choose from.

BOSE recommends that you install their Connect app on the phone that you're pairing their earbuds with, which isn't at all a necessity—maybe when there's a firmware update to install, but otherwise no. Pairing them to my Android phone was as easy as any other Bluetooth device, and the connection has been rock solid ever since.

Sound quality is on par with any other BOSE earbud or headphone, which is to say excellent. Keep in mind, though, that I'm most often listening to mono podcasts rather than stereo music.

With their charging case BOSE seems to have solved the problem of battery anxiety. No one wants to head out on a two-hour run only to have their wireless earbuds die halfway through. These earbuds are primed for 5 hours of battery life, and their charging case is good for an additional two charging cycles. I usually go out for about an hour at a time, and find myself putting the buds back in the case as soon as I get back. The button that opens the case can also indicate the charge; pressing it lights up a row of LED lights immediately below. And if you put one bud into your right ear you'll hear a voice telling you your battery level the moment you remove the left bud from the case. Clever!

These particular wireless earbuds aren't cheap; in Canada and the United States they retail for $250 USD and $330 CAD respectively. But for comfort, sound quality and ease of use they've so far been worth it.

So apparently Android celebrated its 10th birthday this past Sunday. TechRadar did up a little slideshow detailing ten (actually eleven) notable events in the history of what is now the world's most popular computer operating system, mobile or otherwise. This Android fanboy didn't agree with all of their choices so I replaced them with some of my own:

On the surface it doesn't seem like a bad idea at all. Broadcom makes Bluetooth and WiFi chips; Qualcomm makes chips for mobile phones. Having all this manufacturing expertise under one roof should be a win-win for both parties. I think marketing types call it "synergy"?

The problem, as Sascha points out, is that Broadcom isn't really Broadcom:

"Broadcom" is actually a company called Avago, a spin-off of Hewlett-Packard that, in recent years, has spent as much time and energy buying, dismembering, cutting costs on, and selling off parts of other companies as it has inventing things. This has resulted in great financial performance, but not so much in the way of innovation.

In stark contrast, Qualcomm, Inc. is described by Segan as a thin layer of marketeers keeping a hoard of geeks focused on running a successful business. And there's no denying the success of Qualcomm; the company has a target on its back only now, and only because ongoing legal battles with Apple have put them in a financially vulnerable position.

For the whole story check out Sascha's excellent screed at the second link directly below.

Canada's public broadcaster has used the 10th anniversary of the iPhone as an impetus to take a deep dive into the distraction—even addiction—of the modern smartphone app. It's published an entire half-hour episode of its popular Marketplace series on YouTube, and a feature piece on CBC News as well.

The TL;DR is that the modern smartphone app is addictive by design. One example provided is a popular technique called variable reinforcement. It involves three steps: (1) a trigger, like a notification on your phone, (2) an action, as in tapping on the notification to open the app and (3) the reward—a "like" or share of something you've previously posted. Because the reward itself isn't predictable, the action of seeking the reward becomes compulsive.

For the purpose of this CBC investigation it does seem that "app" is rather narrowly defined as a smartphone portal to a messaging service or social media network. It also seems that teens are especially vulnerable to this addictive behaviour.

As a Generation Xer (Nirvana rules!) I myself am not a digital native, and therefore have no trouble putting my smartphone down and immersing myself in some other leisurely pursuit for extended periods of time. And though I'm also a childless monster I can't help but wonder if using messaging apps is fundamentally any different for teenagers than tying up a landline phone for hours on end in those dark ages before smartphones, or even the Internet, existed.

After flashing the update I went for an mid-afternoon stroll through several neighbourhoods in downtown Toronto: Baldwin Village, the U of T campus, The Annex, Kensington Market and Chinatown. Everywhere I checked I had a solid 4G signal, and every time I ran a speed test I got the same results that were so elusive to my device just a week before.

Building penetration is still an issue, of course. In certain places, like the bathrooms at the back of restaurants, the best available data signal is still HSPA+ or worse. But the software update is enough of an improvement that I can now recommend the OnePlus 5 to anyone on the Freedom network—more than any other phone, in fact, since you can test a Freedom SIM in either of the phone's dual SIM slots while keeping your current SIM in the other one!

Just to get you up to speed, back in 2016 there was this crowd-funded Android phone called the Nextbit Robin. The company that made it was acquired last January by Razer, Inc.—an outfit known for making gaming-centric products like laptops, controllers and other accessories. And after much speculation (and a few leaks) this, the Razer Phone, was revealed yesterday.

The phone's design is similar to its blocky Nextbit predecessor, but the new model puts its large forehead and chin to good use, cramming multiple Dolby ATMOS-compatible speaker drivers into each (no headphone jack, though). But what really sets this device apart is the option to run its screen at 120Hz, with enough battery power to do so for more than a few minutes at a time. Other specs:

The Razer Phone will be available in murdered-out black only, with a limited edition adding a neon green logo on the back. It will retail for $699 USD. I would think that an Android phone for serious Android gamers would also have an unlockable bootloader so that you could root it and install AdAway to kill ads on free-to-play titles; maybe that's just me.

On the left, an iPhone 8 Plus. On the right, an iPhone X. The fastest to unlock? Not what you might think!

The GIF above was generated from an AppleInsider review on YouTube, which came to my attention via r/apple on reddit. It clearly demonstrates that getting to your home screen on an iPhone with Touch ID is faster than with the retina-scanning Face ID on the newer model.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with the Face ID here; it's just how the technology has been implemented. Unlocking the iPhone X will take you to your home screen notifications, requiring an additional swipe up to get you home. The iPhone 8 Plus, on the other hand, has a raise-to-wake feature that activates your lock screen—and notifications—just by lifting it, and a slight tap of the Touch ID sensor instantly takes you to your home screen.

You could argue that Face ID is more secure, as by default it protects your notifications from prying eyes. You could also argue that Touch ID is much more convenient, as it quite obviously gets you to your home screen faster.

Thanks to the CRTC, come this December 1st your Canadian carrier will no longer be able to sell phones locked to its own network. It's great news for consumers in this country; even better, some carriers are getting ahead of the deadline and have begun unlocking their hardware for free!

I've cobbled together a quick list of who is currently selling unlocked smartphones (and also LTE-connected tablets). It's by no means complete, so please feel free to add to it. And it doesn't include your local Apple Store or pop-up Samsung shop—because we already knew about those, right?

Bell and Virgin Mobile

Both Bell and its subsidiary Virgin Mobile have begun selling a considerable portion of their device portfolios without any carrier locks:

If in late 2017 you're still in the market for a high-end Android phone there are at least two new contenders on the way—a new and bezel-less OnePlus 5T and this, the HTC U11 Plus. Like the U11 it is expected to come equipped with "Edge Sense", the same squeezable frame found in the new Pixel phones, but in this case easily remappable to launch the app or action of your choice. Unlike the U11, it will have a bigger screen, a tall 18:9 display and a smaller forehead and chin, which will move the fingerprint reader to the back of the device.

That HTC is continuing to release new flagship hardware after losing 2,000 of its best smartphone engineers to Google is curious to say the least. I can't help but wonder how much the U11 Plus is based on the abandoned muskie project for the Pixel 2...

LOL. I'm glad you're here in this thread (that I started). You're certainly welcome here, but you don't have to be here. It's a free forum. It's an interesting topic and I feel it's worthy of review...